Simple Mind, Simple Pleasures...

Oh good gravy, people, do you have as much stuff as I have?  I mean it's like a Belongings Party all up in my homestead.  My lovely parents were kind enough to load all of my belongings that were still behind in the Texas and haul it all down here when they came for a visit. (Ed. note:  My parents RULE parentdom.  Fact.)

When I first moved back to my home sweet home state in March, it was after having been out of work via layoff for almost a year and a half.  I was a little bit broke, and due to circumstances, couldn't afford to transport anything.  But, I had an unbelievable living situation fall in my lap that I could not pass up.  So I loaded my tiny little Mazda 3 down with whatever pomeranians and clothing and miscellaneouses could fit and drove on home. No furniture. No bed.  No nothing.  My dear, darling friends, Shara, Amanda, and TJ, met me at my new townhouse to help me clean and get settled.  I sat in an overwhelmed heap in the middle of a room FULL of trashbags while my little busy bees buzzed all around me, cleaning and organizing and mother henning.  I owe those girls. Huge.  Were it not for them, I would undoubtedly STILL be sitting amongst those trash bags in a fetal position, trying to figure out just where to put everything considering the whole "no furniture" thing. Amanda and TJ loaned me an air mattress and sheets that I would end up sleeping on for a good 4 months.  Some would call them friends.  I call them angels. (OMG, can you believe I said that?!?! hahahahaha. My cheese-o-meter REFUSED to budge unless I typed it! Ha!Sorry! Live, laugh, love, and all that.)

Point:  After living so sparse for a good block of time, it kind of frees the mind a bit. I've been unpacking and unpacking all of the stuff my parents brought me, and while there is a good bit of it that I intend to keep for want/need purposes, I realize how much of the stuff I "needed" is really just stuff.  Something about the sentimental reasons I keep things goes by the wayside when I've lived without it for a significant amount of time. Or maybe it's just in the grand scheme of life, when you've been through the fire, it all of a sudden seems so trivial.  The sentimentality behind it can remain, but the material thing is just that: material. Just because I'm getting rid of that glass dolphin (yes, I have a glass dolphin. Shut up, you know you do too.) that I've been hanging onto all this time, because ohmygosh, I got that from so-and-so that one time at that thing with those people, doesn't mean I'm garage sale-ing the memory, you know? 

Wouldn't life be so much easier if I could just apply this thinking to all areas of life?  I don't want that shirt anymore because it no longer fits or serves a purpose in my life.  Can't I say the same thing for an unhappy memory or an unresolved hurt?   I've been hurt. BAD.  So have you.  So what good does it do us to let ourselves feel that ache everytime a certain song comes on or a reminder pops up?  There needs to come a point when the scar has formed just enough that I can choose to not wince when something hits it.  How much of it is actual pain, and how much of it is just a habit?  How much of it is the fact that I want to hold onto it because admitting it doesn't hurt as much means admitting that I'm letting go?  Nobody likes to let go.  Nobody wants to get rid of their crap that's buried deep in the recesses of home and heart.  Because it becomes comfort.  It becomes what we know.  But what if we cleaned out our hearts/minds like we cleaned out a cluttered closet?  What if we vacuumed and swept and Febrezed the heck out of our spirits so that anytime we open that door, we're bombarded with the scent of fresh and clean and airy?

Whew.  That went down a totally different thought path than I was expecting.  I planned to tell you all about my Electric Youth perfume (with the hot pink lighting bolt inside the bottle!)(!!!!), but instead we had therapy.  What do you guys think?  Do you have cluttered lives? Cluttered emotions? 

Let's share a group hug!

For the birds...

In case I’ve never mentioned it, I LOVE animals. Prefer them to most people actually. I’ve never been able to pick a “favorite” animal, but because I had a pet cockatiel for 16 years, I tend to gravitate more towards birds. I’ve been made fun of MANY times because, when out and about, I will stop to take pictures of birds. Not because they’re doing anything particularly birdy, but because hey, here’s one that’s sleeping while standing on one foot. How cute is that? Yeah, I’m obsessed.

In Texas, they have the Grackles. These have to be the most awesome birds I’ve ever seen. They are completely scraggly and look like they do nothing but fly around and street fight (air fight?) other Grackles. And they travel in HUGE flocks. Apparently, the grocery store across the street from my apartment is their Mecca, because honestly, there are THOUSANDS. That is not an exaggeration. It’s a sight to see. Every evening, they fill the trees and sit on the roof and in the grassy areas around the store. It’s so crazy. And they’re so loud. They’re all squawking and chirping and shrieking. When the males get all irritated or matey or happy or whatever, they flip out and fluff their feathers all out and make this crazy chirpy noise:



I am so fascinated. A friend of mine’s husband works at that grocery and said they will sit outside the automatic doors at the store. When someone comes out, the bird flies in to the bakery and pecks open the bread bags for food. It flies back, sits on the big white security alarm tower next to the door, and waits for someone to open it. Then it flies back out with dinner. How flipping awesome is that???

So anyway, I had to run an errand for work today, and as I was passing one intersection, I noticed a Grackle sitting right in the middle of the lane. I thought it was weird to see one sitting like that (because they totally stalk. For real.) I looked in the rearview mirror and saw it kind of topple over then sit itself back up. OMG! There is NO WAY I can just drive away. It can’t move, and it’s going to get hit by a car. That’s just too horrible to think about. Luckily, the intersection is very low traffic at this time of day, plus there is a shopping center right on the corner so it was easy to turn around. I was praying so hard, Please God, keep the cars away. Miraculously, there was not a single car at the light so I was able to pull right up behind the poor little thing. I was sort of afraid of it because I’d seen these bad boys in action. They will totally cut you. She fell over a couple more times while I was walking up to her (it was a girl. I Googled it.) and completely broke my heart. I cupped my hands under her really slow, and she let me scoop her right up. I couldn’t tell where she was hurt, but once she was in my hands she wrapped her little claws around my fingers. You guys? I was thisclose to ending up with a pet Grackle . (Remember that episode of Friends where the monkey grabs Ross’s finger and New York Minute starts playing? Yeah, that was me.) Schlotzsky’s was right there on the corner, and there was a sort of flat, clear area in the garden. I figured that’d be the safest place so I set her down, and she wouldn’t let go. OMG. I wanted to keep her. I talked to her for a minute, and she finally let go and settled down in the garden. Thank you God, for keeping all the cars away so I could save that little birdy.

Yes, it was sad because I know if she is really hurt, then it’s likely she won’t make it. But to know that at least, she’ll go safe in a garden instead of on a busy, scary highway makes me feel better. Normally, animal welfare just completely wrecks me. If I see a hurt or stray animal or even roadkill, I just can’t stop thinking about it, wishing I could do something to help, oftentimes, beating myself up about it because I feel like I should have done something, but didn’t. However, in this case, I know I did everything I could do, and I really felt a peace about it as I left. Sure, I would’ve loved to be able to save her completely, but that’s not what was meant to happen. I know many people might think“Oh my gosh Jenny, it’s a bird. Why the big deal?” I used to say the same thing. Why am I getting so destroyed over an animal? Wild, stray, domestic, whatever. I called my mom crying about some poor animal one day and was so upset by how upset I got. She said “Everyone was given a passion about certain things for a reason. God needs people on this Earth to take care of his animals and that’s what He gave you.” So I’m embracing it. Maybe it seems silly to some, but think about what you are truly passionate about. I mean the really deep down stuff that moves you. What if somebody said “Oh that? That’s nothing. Why do you care about that?” It’s not silly to you because that’s the passion you were given by the One who made you. We need that diversity. It doesn’t matter if it kids (my mom) or cheesecake (me). If it’s important to you, then it’s important. Period.

Do what you can with the moments you’re given. Even if it seems as simple as picking up a little bird off the street, it's what you were meant to do. To the world, it was just one bird. But to that little bird, it was the world.

Beautiful perspective...

A friend of mine sent this to me today and I thought I would share...

"How can you know that you are saved?"
A two-year-old boy was once staring at a heater, fascinated by its bright orange glow. His father saw him and warned, "Don't touch that heater son. It may look pretty, but it's hot." The little boy believed him, and moved away from the heater. Sometime later, when his father had left the room he thought to himself, "I wonder if it really is hot." He then reached out to touch it and see for himself. The second his flesh burned, he stopped believing it was hot. He now knew it was hot! He had moved out of the realm of belief into the realm of experience! Many Christians believed in God's existence before their conversion. However, when they obeyed the Word of God, turned from their sins and embraced Jesus Christ, they stopped just believing. The moment they reached out and touched the heater bar of God's mercy, they moved out of belief only into the realm of experience. This experience is so radical, Jesus referred to it as being "born again." The Apostle Paul said if you are "in Christ" you are a brand new creature. When Paul wrote to the church at Corinth, he said, "My speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God" (1 Corinthians 2:4-5). What Paul was saying was, "I deliberately didn't talk you into your faith, but I let God's power transform you." He didn't reach them through an intellectual assent, but through the realm of personal experience. Suppose two men walked into the room just after that child had burned his hand on the heater. One was a heater manufacturer and the other a skin specialist. Both assured that boy that he couldn't possibly have been burned. But all the experts, theories, equations and arguments in the world will not dissuade that boy, because of his experience. Those who have been transformed by God's power need never fear scientific nor any other argument, because the man with an experience is not at the mercy of a man with an argument. "For our Gospel did not come to you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Spirit and in much assurance& " (1 Thessalonians 1:5).


Be blessed today!

Finding joy in the simple things...

We all have stress. We all have those crappy, cranky, omg-when-did-these-pants-get-so-tight-I'm-so-blah days. And then we all have those omg-I-am-totally-rocking-these-jeans-today-and-my-hair-couldn't-possibly-look-any-better days. Yesterday, I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror and immediately subconsciously fired off a list of things that I didn't like - need to lose more weight, dark circles under my eyes, skin looks splotchy....And the it just hit me. Stop. Just stop doing that. Why is it necessary to point out the stuff we don't like? We would never let another person talk to us like that, so why do we allow ourselves to do it? Why isn't our first response "wow, I really like the color or my eyes" or "I can tell I've lost a couple of pounds." ?



So my new plan is to be nicer to myself. Give myself a break. So what if I ate some french fries. I've lost 30 lbs, and I earned them. I'm not going to gain all of it back just because I allowed myself a snack. Now move on. I'm working on being more appreciative of how I look. I'm not perfect, never will be. There will always be things I want to improve. But I think being content and having fun with what you have in that moment is so important. This realization came to me when I had to clean the apartment yesterday. And I mean that serious kind of cleaning where you realize you have let it get way too bad and gross...yeah, you get me. I was in my favorite old beat up t-shirt, shorts that are too big for me, and my hair was all crazy on my head, and feeling all kinds of not cute, and as I'm elbow deep in Ajax scrubbing the tub, I decided that I was going to make these yellow rubber gloves SeXy! Oh yes, my friends. The camera came out, and there was a America's Next Top Model meets Good Housekeeping photo shoot.




Am I corny? Yes. A dork? Absolutely. Nerd? No question about it. But dangit, I had fun cleaning up that apartment yesterday and felt pretty cute by the time I was done. And that's really all that matters right?



P.S. - Add an awesome photo editor computer program and way too much time on my hands to this mix and...








Hehehe. You know you're going to go do it too.



I love you girls! You're all smart and beautiful and sexy and fun! Don't let anybody tell you different. Especially yourself.